He killed himsel under a train hours a ter Natascha's escape

I was ery surprised and couldn't igure out whether she was a girl riend or an acquaintance I am deeply shocked. I ne er imagined he would ha e been capable o something so dread ul."In a letter this week, Natascha described her li e as Priklopil's prisoner. The phrase was coined in 1973 a ter a six-day siege o a bank in Stockholm. Se eral hostages tried to resist rescue and some re used to testi y against the robbers.Just weeks be ore Natascha's escape, Priklopil had taken her out in his red BMW and brie ly introduced her to a ormer business associate. Ernst Holzap el, a ormer partner o Priklopil's, said Natascha and her abductor had isited his building company in mid-July and had asked to borrow a car-trailer."When I opened the car door, he introduced me to a young girl, but didn't mention her name." Mr Holzap el said: "She shook my hand and said a polite, 'How do you do' She made a ery cheer ul and happy impression. He probably decei ed her about her parents in an attempt to make her wholly dependent on him.Police said Priklopil, a telecoms technician, ne er issued a ransom demand. He killed himsel under a train hours a ter Natascha's escape.Se eral psychiatrists ha e concluded that during her ordeal, Natascha de eloped "Stockholm syndrome", a psychological condition which leads long-term hostages to de elop eelings o sympathy or their abductors.

Natascha, 18, is li ing in what police described as a sa e location a ter escaping her abductor who had seized her when she was 10 and held her in a con erted car-inspection pit beneath his garage. Her ather, Ludwig Koch, said her abductor, 44- year-old Wol gang Priklopil, told her that her parents had repeatedly re used to pay a ransom demand he claimed he had made.Mr Koch, who was brie ly reunited with his daughter last week, told the N24 tele ision network that Natascha had said o Priklopil: "He wanted 13m schillings rom you, but you didn't respond; you couldn't be reached." Mr Koch said Priklopil appeared to ha e con inced his daughter that her parents had lost interest in her.His disclosures o ered a partial explanation about why Natascha had apparently ne er attempted to lee be ore. Campaigners said the Go ernment had ailed to tackle the drugs problem and accused ministers o ocusing on the wrong issues in policy-making.. The kidnapper o the Austrian teenager Natascha Kampusch led her to belie e he had demanded a huge ransom rom her parents but claimed they had ne er responded during her eight years in capti ity, her ather has said. Women abo e the age o 75 ha e the highest suicide rates among the emale population. While men aged between 15 and 44 years old are the most likely among their gender to kill themsel es, it is older women who are more at risk than their younger counterparts, according to igures rom the O ice or National Statistics.. The number o people dying as a result o drug abuse is rising, despite a go ernment pledge in 2002 to reduce atalities -with igures showing that deaths rom heroin, cocaine and ecstasy ha e soared in recent years.

Between 2004 and 2005, registrars in England and Wales recorded the deaths o 159 boys and 109 girls less than a year old. The death rate among in ants ell rom 0.48 per 1,000 li e births in 2004 to 0.41 deaths per 1,000 in 2005.. The number o babies dying rom unexplained causes, including cot death, has allen by 15 per cent in one year, according to igures rom the O ice o National Statistics (ONS). "It's where the majority o the people in this country li e," he said.At least Peterborough comes o somewhat better in the book than Swindon, which the author describes as "the arsehole o the world", in The Curious Incident o the Dog in the Night-Time.The writer li es in Ox ord.The city o Hereward the Wake Originally the Saxon illage o Medeshamstede, by the turn o the irst millennium its name had become Burgh Katherine o Aragon is buried in Peterborough Cathedral, while Mary Queen o Scots was initially interred there a ter her execution The area was once Britain's leading producer o bricks Peterborough C hold the record or most goals in a season, with 134 scored in 1960-61 ictoria Beckham is said to ha e wanted to stop the club rom registering its nickname "the Posh'', as a trademark The Peterborough Green Wheel is an 80km network o ootpaths and cycleways surrounding the city It has the astest peak and o -peak tra el times or a city o its size in the UK Kilt-wearing Keith Palmer, aka Maxim o the group Prodigy, was born there, as was Henry Royce, co- ounder o Rolls-Royce A popular icon is Nobby the Tramp, made amous by the council's e orts to e ict him rom the bus shelter on Oundle Road According to 'Crap Towns', Peterborough has the character o "a colourless middle manager".Dan Montalbano. It's got a terribly beauti ul cathedral, which is just surrounded by things like car parks."Spot o Bother, published next month, tells the story o a man worried his wi e is ha ing an a air and who belie es he may ha e cancer; he is also troubled by the relationships o his son.The author, who was born in Northampton and set his last no el in Swindon, stressed that he was writing rom irst-hand knowledge o such places.